The castes usually regarded as impure are the tanners, bamboo-workers, sweepers, hunters and fowlers, gipsies and vagrants, village musicians and village weavers.

These castes, the Chamars, Basors, Mahars, Koris, Gandas and others are usually also employed as agricultural and casual labourers.

Formerly, as already seen, they were not allowed to hold land.

There is no reason to doubt that the status of impurity, like that of the Sudra, was originally the mark of a subjugated and inferior race, and was practically equivalent to slavery.

This was the position of the indigenous Indians who were subjugated by the Aryan invaders and remained in the country occupied by them.